Kudremukh

It had been almost an year since I last trekked. Trekking is something I love the most reason being I feel it gives me time to be with myself and also it tests my mental fitness to push myself even in the worst conditions. It was a perfect trek reason being I had an injury which made things worse and I kept thinking what is the limit I can push myself and where will I break down. I felt really happy and lot more confident when I trusted my legs and walked till the end.

Initially the plan was to trek Ombattu gudda during rains. But with a river bed along the trekking path and with heavy monsoons in the region, we gave up the idea of trekking Ombattu gudda and narrowed down on Kudremukh. Kudremukh a very common house hold name to hear in Karnataka for its iron ore mines, had been on my trekking radar for a long time and for some reason I never visited this place.

I always say trekking in rains makes the trek at least twice dangerous and risky reason being slopes/rocks are very slippery and you can injure your ankle/knee easily, streams will be overflowing and at some places it can be risky to cross the stream without anticipating the water levels if it rains heavily for the return journey, can easily get lost in the thick green cover during the monsoon if left out from the group, at peak there might be thick clouds making visibility almost nil so either you can get lost or can surprise a wild animals, and finally who can forget the blood sucking leeches during the monsoon in western ghats.

We started at around 11pm from Harsha's house and headed towards Khalsa. We stopped at around 12 near dinner at a Dhaba on the Bangalore - Hassan highway after which we again stopped at Kottigehara for having neeru dosa at around 4:30 am. We reached Khalsa around 6:30 in the morning. From Khalsa you need to head towards Kudremukh - Shamsha road for around 10kms and then stop at Balgal.

After getting down at Balgal, we started walking towards Satish's house which is around 6kms walk. We took around 1:30 - 2hours before we reached Satish's house. We had heavy breakfast at his house and started our trek towards the peak. Even though I enjoy the rain treks a lot, I miss the opportunity to use my camera at will and it takes lot of pain to carry it. You have to be very careful about your camera as it rains real hard. Make sure you have enough protection.

Kudremukh is a national park and trekking without permission is illegal, also you are not allowed to camp in the peak and hence one is forced to reach back to the starting point before night. From Satish's house we started to walk towards the peak around 9:30am. One can also take a jeep from Balgal to Satish's house. They charge around 500rs for 8 people.

I loved this place for the reason, there was no plastics. After so many treks I feel very places are left so clean. It was perfect green cover till the peak. I would rate this one of the finest trek for the green cover and clean environment.

We reached peak around 3 in the afternoon, after a quick lunch started heading back to Satish's house. It also started to rain consistently till we reached the house at around 6:30pm. It was during this stretch that an old ligament tear in my right leg opened up and I had sever pain walking down. By the time we reached Satish's house almost everyone were dead tired and almost every one were bleeding with leech bites. After a hot water bath and heavy dinner it was time for some rest with dead legs.

We got up early and went to Somavathy falls which is just around 10min walk from Satish's house. After spending some time near the falls we started walking towards the main road. We reached around 12 and then we started back to bangalore





GPS Maps:

Kudremuka trek

Trek Directions:

Bangalore - Hassan - Beluru - Moodigere - Kottigehara - Sunkasaale - Kalasa

At Kottigehara - don't forget to have neeru dosa :-)

From Kalasa ask for directions towards Balgal, its around 10kms.

If you are late to Balgal you can take a Jeep to Satish's house from where you can start the trek. Its around 6kms walk to Satish's house.

Camping is not allowed here and permission from Forest department is a must. Satish can arrange for the same.

Don't forget to carry some food during trek, torch and salt for leech bites.

Contacts:

Satish Mullodi : 08263249595

Arun - 9481578065/9481074530/8722847688

Macro Shots

It was an oppurtunity to find the subject and shoot it using my new canon EF 100mm f2.8 macro USM. Here are the results of my experiments with macro.

Airshow 2011

Scariest feeling of an airshow held in Bangalore once in 2 years is the traffic jam it brings along. I was here to experience the same again. It took almost 2hours to reach the venue and then another 30min to walk from the parking lot to the entry gate. Huge crowd is all that I can say and I assume it would a big challenge for any organising committee to handle such huge crowd. We all know about the terror threat we have, but then I feel sad for the security people to frisk every individual entering the venue especially when its in lakhs. As expected it was pretty ordinary checking and had a feeling one could carry anything inside.

Some of the worlds best metal birds were here for display. Quite a few celebrities had free joy rides on these machines. Some of the fighters I could identify were indigenous LCA, Sukhoi, F-16, F-18, Euro Fighter, Grippen etc. The sheer sound of these machines are a huge crowd puller. Looking at some of the stunts these pilots could do, was thinking about the mindset one should have to rule the sky and how they would feel once they land back and start driving a car.

Even after trying a lot, didn't have tickets for the show until the last day. With help of my friend Harsha got 2 tickets at the last minute. Enjoyed the stalls set up by Israel, US and Russia the most. It was funny to see many people taking pictures with US soldiers. I was also surprised to learn that the Red bull acrobat team was lead by a 60 year old woman.

Just like most of my blogs narrow down here as well it was a sad scene to see so many people throwing out the trash and littering the place badly. Enough warnings were given out saying garbage would attract birds which might lead to bird hit. After looking at the mess created, I could only say most of the people visited were literates and not educated enough to understand the seriousness of the warning.

Finished with the finest performance and started heading back to parking lot at around 5. Started back to home at 6, was misguided by a policeman to take a different route in order to beat the traffic jam which lead me to explore a different part of Bangalore which I had never been to before.

Rangantittu and Kokkarebellur

It was a bit disappointing in Rangantittu, I couldn't find as much birds as I had expected. I would suggest probably February and march would be the best months to visit. However Kokkarebellur made up for the missed opportunity in Rangantittu with some good shots of photography. Also felt Rangantittu was way too expensive be it 30min boating or be it the small canteen over there. On the other hand at Kokkarebellur most of the birds are available on trees near the village and can spend as much time as we want rather than depending on the boating.

Started very early in the morning around 5am, took the usual nice road to hit mysore road and was at my usual breakfast break point Shivalli restaurant at 7am near Maddur. After some good breakfast and strong filter coffee headed towards Rangantittu. Reached there by around 8 in the morning took the first boat. I would suggest to be very early in the morning around 8 in order to beat the crowd. On a weekend this place is over crowded and for sure the boats men wouldn't take you for more than 20-30min ride. However I was pretty happy that it was pretty decently maintained even after so much of crowd. But then its our responsibility as well to maintain the sanity of the place.

Unlike Rangantittu we can spend lot of time studying the birds habitat and photo shooting in Kokkarebellur. It was interesting to observe one bird always guards the nest and the other flies to either get some food or some twigs for the nest. Most of these nests are always watched by other predators like Brown Kite or Bahamani Kites, which wouldn't miss an opportunity to pick eggs or babies.

Was surprised that Kokkarebellur village panchayat had not set up for a parking fee and toll from visitors for improvement of the place and some lively hood for the villagers. I am sure more and more people visiting this place they would think in this direction. Spent most of my time almost till evening doing photo shoot of Painted Stork and Pelicans. It was sad to see a small baby fell down from the tree top and die instantly, was not sure weather a dead baby was thrown out of nest from its mother or did it die falling down. But that's part of nature couldn't have done anything here.

After spending an entire day on field the most tiring part is driving back to home with all the traffic once we enter Bangalore.

Route: Bangalore - Ramnagara -Chenpatna - 10kms before Maddur take a left towards Kokkarebellur and drive 13kms to reach the village Kokkarebellur.

From Maddur - Mandya - Srirangapatna - From Srirangapatna take a right towards Rangantittu.

Maidenahalli

Probably for a long time I have not wasted my holidays sitting at home, but it's a surprise for me that 10days of holidays and I am sitting at home. I just proposed the idea of driving to Maidenahalli for over night camping and then a photo shoot of the black bucks early morning. Raghu and Harsha joined me for the same. It was a quick short trip.

Called up RFO Harish for permission but heard since the village had zilla panchayat elections the next day, permission was denied. However Harish heeded to our demand because of our interest and allowed us to stay at the IB by giving a letter to Tashildar asking for permission at Madugiri.

We started from Bangalore at around 4pm and reached Tumkur pretty quickly, however from Tumkur road to Madugiri is horrible. Well the better route would be to take a right from Dabaspete on the Bangalore Tumkur highway and head towards Kortagere. This road is pretty decent and also a bit shorter.

We reached Madugiri at around 6.30, took permission from Tashildar and headed towards IB. We reached here by around 7pm. On the way we were really very hungry and stopped at Puruva village for some masalapuri. Cold winter with some hot masala puri was a perfect combination for a tired soul. We had packed some food for the night, finished with it and then spent some quality time star gazing, remembered my friend Naveen who is really good at it. Planned to take him some time and learn some stuff from him. It was wonderfull experience in the open sky watching so many stars and a couple of bright shooting stars.

Raghu and Harsha picked up a room, however I prefered to stay in the tent with Jyothi. However night was not great since there was one more group of boys who were partying hard. It was surprising that RFO gave them the permission to party one day before the elections, otherwise with all respect I really appreciate RFO Harish for his work in maintaining this place and also his love for nature.

We got up very early in the morning for some good photo shoot but just like last time looks like the black bucks are very camera shy and I cannot get a good picture with my 300mm lens. However the best thing of the trip was to find some Falcons along with a couple of good picture of other birds along with the black bucks.

Team: Poorna, Jyothi, Gilli and Harsha

Route: Bangalore - Nelamangala - Dabaspete - Take a right from Dabaspete towards Kortagere - Since the road from Tumkur is in very bad shape and also its a bit long it would be better to go by this route. From Kortagere take a right towards Madugiri -- From here take Hindupura road - Kodigenahalli - Puruva Village - ID Halli

Contact: RFO Harish -- 9448731686/ Ranganath -- 8105224893

They have 2 rooms and a hall with 2 toilets and they charge 600rs for the entire stuff else 300rs for the room. However there is no facility for food, you will have to make your own arrangements for this. You can camp outside with your tents and you will not be charged anything.

Agumbe and Malpe Beach

I have seen this urbanization growing rapidly near my home town. Once covered with rain forests are giving up for human greed. Yet probably we can find one of the best ever green forests in the world. It's probably almost impossible to venture into these forests during rains due to the fear of floods, insects and snakes. Forest in these parts are so dense it gives me a feeling that even mammals avoid these place, its a paradise for reptiles. As a child i remembered a beautiful virgin lake near the check post of Agumbe, how ever I was a bit disappointed to see it being converted into a park with lots of petty shops and plastics all around. Once you start loving nature in its raw format you would for sure not like the compressed format of it like parks.



There has been lot of changes to Malpe beach as well, but it looks lot better with some good facilities. But still if we can avoid the crowd from littering the place that would be amazing, we can't just leave everything to authorities its the responsibility of the common man as well. I wanted to visit St. Mary's Island but didn't have enough time for the same.



But best part of the trip was visiting Vinayak's house and staying there. A small village Hermunde on the foothills of Western ghats in the middle of the forest was amazing. Plan to visit here again in December.
Also visiting ARRS (Agumbe Rainforest Research Station) was very educative. Would love to spend some time volunteering here. I am sure to learn a lot talking to these experts and this would also benefit me for my photo shoots. Visit this link for more details http://www.agumberainforest.com/


Also Spotted monitor lizard (near someshwara), flying lizard draco dussumieri (agumbe), grey hornbill (Arsikere) for the first time.

Route Directions:
Agumbe: Bangalore - Tumkur - Tiptur - Arsikere - Bhadravati - Shimoga - Thirtahalli - Agumbe
Malpe Beach: Agumbe -- Udupi - Malpe